


Maybe, This Time

by phrenitis



Category: Suits (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Times Donna and Harvey Didn’t Say Love</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe, This Time

_“Sometimes  
a word is found so right it trembles  
at the slightest explanation.”  
\-- Rita Dove, ‘O’_

==

i.

She gets engaged for love.

At the time, she truly believes it.

In her twenties, love is the sweetness of freedom and youth. It’s an exercise in choice, embarking on the thrilling adventure of a lifetime, and god, it's about the _sex_ – unbridled passion that hits her heart heavy and hard and is unrelenting in its need to both consume and fill. She is two feet in, completely in love with love.

She learns quickly then that love is fleeting - unreliable, complicated, infatuation replaced with stark reality in the sharp crash of a glass shattering on the floor. Break ups are messy and devastating, and in her twenties, she’s fallen in and out of love so fast she feels lived in and heart-weary before she’s even seen the dawning light of thirty.

“If there _is_ a next time,” she tells Harvey later when he asks, “I’m marrying for money.”

==

ii.

Harvey looks at her curiously when the flowers appear with the messenger - _roses_ , so prosaic - his question unasked although she knows not for long. The quiet reigns for nearly a couple of minutes, then-

"The Boyfriend?" he asks, standing by her desk. She stopped using their names with him years ago - too many to remember, and too transitory to bother. They’ve been down this road before.

" _Ex_ ," she emphasizes.

"Ah." He signs the limited liability release for the Turowitz acquisition that she hands him, and then looks at her again. “Did you leave him unharmed?”

“That was just the once,” she says, affronted.

“Yes, but you _enjoyed_ it.”

She gives a half shrug because he has a point, and she still has a wicked right hook. “He’ll survive.”

“And those?” he asks, glancing pointedly at the roses.

She sighs. “He’s in the apology stage.”

Harvey turns back to his office, so she can’t see his expression as he walks away, but there’s something in his tone that she’s unable to identify. “He fell too hard for you.”

“They always do!” she says, and wonders why that should bother her.

==

iii.

It starts with the dress.

She doesn’t mean to lock eyes with him first – with nearly a hundred people at the gala, and more than one man glancing her way, the odds are actually against it – but with 30 feet between them, it’s impossible to miss Harvey’s reaction to her arrival. Louis’ expression is priceless; then again, he’s not her boss.

Score one for vintage Versace.

Louis stutters and stammers his way through a compliment with Harvey supplying the dropped words – _dress_ , _stunning_ , _date_ -

“What?” Louis halts his praise immediately. “No. That’s not-”

“-what you were thinking?” Harvey asks, all innocence.

She already needs a drink.

==

So actually, it starts with a martini.

She makes the required greeting rounds – Wakefield-Cady, Paul McDermott and Drucker, Smith & Devane – the number of law firms and partners truly staggering, and she’s familiar with every one. Her glass is empty by the end, but her return to the bar is stopped as she helps detach Jessica from conversation with the insufferable dimwit Jeffries, and quickly confers what she’s gathered regarding the recent flurry of promotions at Smith & Devane. She’s but a long reach away from the bar when Brody suddenly corners her, pestering her with questions and barely veiled accusations about her part in what’s happened to his beloved DA.

Harvey appears from nowhere, his hand sliding smoothly around her waist as he hands her a new drink. She takes a sip and knows she’s going to enjoy where this moment is about to go.

“Brody,” he says not unkindly, but she hears the low warning beneath. “Wasn’t it nine years ago-“

“-ten,” she corrects.

“ _Ten_ years ago that Donna here discovered your little secret-“

“- _dirty_ little secret,” she adds.

“Your dirty little secret with that intern – what was her name?”

“Elena,” she offers.

“Right. Elena.” Harvey gives her waist a brief squeeze as Brody’s face flushes an unattractive shade of red. “I seem to remember that didn’t end very well for you.”

Brody’s mouth opens, then slams shut, and if he has any words to impart, he takes them with him as he beelines to the valet.

“Just like old times,” she says fondly, and isn’t surprised when Harvey pulls her closer, his laugh in her hair.

==

iv.

It happens just the once –

A conversation about his suit, an off-hand question, her _never_ , his sly smile all lined up and falling together like the sudden start of rain.

His fingers slipping under the hem of her shirt, running along her side to her stomach, gentle pressure that skips and slides against her skin. He’s watching her, waiting, as his hands do the talking.

“Never?” he asks, repeating her like he doesn’t believe.

Her hands loosening his tie, top buttons following as he steps closer, space compressing as her fingers weave into the hair at the back of his neck.

She doesn’t have the words, lacks the conviction, so she shakes her head.

His lips at the corner of her mouth, soft and suggestive.

\- and it’s years before it doesn’t feel like yesterday.

==

v.

On the train, he takes her hand.

 

- _Fin_


End file.
